Mari Vanna

It looks a whole lot like Absurdistan over there across the street from Gramercy Tavern, all these spidery houseplants covering the front of Mari Vanna and a vision of Soviet-era Russian hospitality opening up behind them. There are tchotchkes and nesting dolls on shelves that run back toward the kitchen, chandeliers casting light onto intentionally peeling sheets of wallpaper, waiters gliding like hockey players around tables of models, everyone drinking, toasting, drinking some more.

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SOVIET HOSPITALITY Mari Vanna in the Flatiron District.Credit
Michael Falco for The New York Times

Vodka may be the best thing about this new Russian restaurant in the space that used to be, years ago, Silver Swan. (Bonus points to those who remember the late-night cross-dressing scene there.) But it is not the only thing. Good bread and a platter of smoked fish — eel, salmon, sturgeon and turbot — make for a marvelous pairing with beet-infused vodka (one of 20-plus varieties, $9 a shot), as does a plate of house-cured pickles and another of herring. (Appetizers run $12 to $17; caviar costs a lot more.)

Main courses ($18 to $27) are less successful. The requisite chicken Kiev is unnecessary, and no one ought to eat beef stroganoff over buckwheat kasha with a lunatic blast of truffle oil over the top. Chilean sea bass with mustardy mashed potatoes? It’s protein and starch, no more. No thanks as well to grandmatronly kotletki, here rendered as bunless hamburgers, cooked down to gray. Pelmeni will always do in a pinch.

But these missteps are not the point so much as those appetizers, shared by the table, accompanied by a drink or two or three, another round shared with the hostess, a waiter, the next table over, another toast, another snack, everyone getting a little sentimental, a little loose, pleased to have come to this strange, wonderful jewel box for something that is not quite dinner, not quite simply a night of drinking. It’s something to ponder the next morning, anyway, trembly and weak as the coffee brews.